Batch converting RAW formats

[bigredshark]

For various reasons (performance mainly) I like to convert my NEF files of my Camera's into DNG before importing into Aperture. Currently I'm doing this slowly and laboriously with Bridge and ACR - surely there's a tool to automate batch processing images from NEF into DNG? Surely.

Anybody know of anything?

 

[bigredshark]

Ahh, I've just discover DNG convertor has a command line interface...which can be tied to an automator script I'm sure...


/Applications/Adobe\ DNG\ Converter.app/Contents/MacOS/Adobe\ DNG\ Converter -u -p1 -cr5.4 -d /output-folder/ /input-folder/*.NEF

That should make life a shade easier...

 

[bigredshark]

For reference, what I'm trying to do is tidy up the start of my workflow a little. Previously I've imported straight from the memory card into Aperture and then everything lives there.

However Aperture is more dog like than usual when confronted with NEF files (it's much snappier with CR2 or DNGs). So I'm plotting an automated process where I can drag the NEFs off the memory card and have them batch converted to DNG, backed up to my NAS and imported to Aperture (while I make a pot of coffee preferably). From there it'll be business as usual, except Aperture will be a bit quicker and I'll have a backup of the original raw images (which will get rsync'd off site overnight). Lovely...

 

[bigredshark]

Sounds like a great idea. How many images are you shooting that you're able to sync off site overnight though? And what sort of upload speed are you getting during that process?

It varies, if it's after a trip away then it could be thousands so it's not perfect. As I'm rsync'ing it to a server I have physical access to, I can dump them on a external hard drive and do a bulk upload that way if necessary. I could also do that run the rsync from the office over a gigabit link...

I'm getting 1.2Mbps upload on the connection I'll use at home, which gives about 450-500MB an hour, so given a decent window overnight a few hundred frames will go up easily enough...

Not perfect but better than nothing (which is what I have right now give or take). I'll have the original on a NAS and offsite (after a delay) and a copy in Aperture and a backup of my Aperture Library on the NAS and off site.

 

[bigredshark]

Hi all, I'm a complete noob in terms of RAW files, but ~36GB of my wedding photos are due to be supplied to me in RAW format. I want to keep these files, but to make use of them as JPGs, is this Adobe DNG converter the best way of batch converting them? I don't even know what a DNG is! thanks for any help in advance.

Probably not, DNG is 'digital negative', it's Adobe's semi-open RAW format (rather than the loads of different propriety formats the camera manufacturers use).

Batch converting RAW to JPG is a very difficult one to answer as a raw is literally the raw data straight off the camera sensor. It's not been sharpened or had the contrast or saturation increase (which the camera will do to an extent if you ask it for JPEGs), it's just the RAW data.

If you're not experienced in processing RAW files then I'd say getting your wedding photos in that format isn't terribly helpful, maybe one of our resident wedding 'togs will comment but I wouldn't expect them to supply the average customer with (fairly useless with work) RAW files...in fact I'd kinda expect, unless you've gone for a very cheap package, them to have done a decent amount of processing for you. Just dumping 36GB of RAW images on you doesn't seem terribly professional...